MOTHER LODE: Invention is simple, cheap, and useful -- if only it worked

One of the more interesting programs on cable television is
"100 Inventions that Changed the World." It gives a five-second summary of the
development of some everyday things we take for granted, like the typewriter or
telephone or corkscrew. Some came about as flashes of genius, some as the
cumulative effort of corporate scientists, and some almost by accident.

Where the spray bottle would fit on such a list is a mystery
to me. It seems to operate on a simple principle of displacement by air
pressure, but it must have required plastic to make it really affordable and
accessible.

We used to dampen clothing for ironing using a small sprinkler
head on a cork base, stuck into a soda bottle that was filled with water.
Before we had the money for such a convenience, we just sprinkled the water on
with our fingers. Now we have the spray bottle, a marvel of convenience –
except when it doesn't work, which is often.

I bought fungicide last year to try to save my sick roses, and
this year, got it out to save my sick tomatoes. The liquid chemical came
pre-packaged in a plastic spray bottle with a gun-style grip. I don't remember
that I had a problem using the stuff last year, but this year, the chemical did
not spray. It dribbled out in a thin stream.

I have a variety of spray bottles, so I poured the fungicide
into a different bottle and tried again. When I pumped the trigger, nothing
happened at all, no matter how I set the adjustable nozzle.

I usually figure that such situations are my fault, so I got
another bottle and tried again. No luck. I finally found one bottle that had a
somewhat wider tube on the sprayer, and was able to douse one row of tomatoes
before I ran out of the liquid.

There were more tomatoes in danger, so the next day I made a
trip to the farm store to buy more fungicide. I got a quart, prepackaged in the
plastic bottle with built-in sprayer. Why not? Surely the new bottle would work
fine. Once again, I was disappointed. I had to swap the factory spray nozzle
for the one from the spare bottle that had performed well. The smaller grip
made it harder to use, and by the time I had finished spraying the tomatoes, my
hands ached.

Spray bottles are sold by ones, by the dozen, and I would
imagine, by the railroad carload. I would think they accumulate in households
and office cleaning closets year after year, as they have in my garage, since
they don't exactly wear out, but they also don't work and so people would keep
buying new ones. How long until all of the world's available space is filled
with non-functioning spray bottles?

The trouble is, every once in a while, one works perfectly. It
looks like all the others, but it works just fine. Figuring out why could be
the thing that really changes the world.